The Atlantic - How the Video-Game Industry Already Lost Out in the Gun-Control Debate.As it happens, that's just what happened to games (and popular media more generally) in the NRA's good guy with a gun response to the Newtown shooting. Guns aren't a factor in gun violence for the NRA—rather, games, media, and law enforcement failures must take the blame. Once the terms of the debate are set like this (and set they very much were thanks to the over-the-top bravado in this press conference) then it's very hard to extract oneself from the debate without shifting the frame, without changing the terms of the debate.

I certainly believe that the White House would like nothing more than to see an end to mass gun murders in America's elementary schools. But the fact remains that gun violence takes place every day, all across this country, at a rate of dozens of deaths a day, and as the leading cause of death among African-American youth. But when the vice president establishes a task force on gun control and violence that includes the media industries that the NRA has once again chosen as their patsies after a particularly heinous and public example of gun violence, all it can do is shift attention away from guns.

IGN - Let's Talk About Violent Video Games.Distinctions between games for adults and those for kids are fairly clear these days, thanks to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). Formed in 1994, the ESRB rates all video games as a guide for parents similar to the way movies are rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Games are rated ranging from E for Everyone and T for Teen to M for Mature, 17+.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding that games are only for children. This needs to change for the 'violence in games' dialogue to advance.

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RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:31:Look at the list of people performing these shootings, most if not all of them were/are on medications and have mental disorders. So what's more rational, making knee jerk reactions calling for gun bans, rather than look at the symptoms of why these shootings are happening is like putting a bandaid on someone who's arm just got cut off with a chainsaw.

So what's your solution? Yes, most of them have been depressed and on medication. Obviously there's an issue there. Those that weren't on medication were likely just undiagnosed.

But what's your solution? How do you turn the knowledge that some depressed and medicated people buy guns and shoot up public places into stopping this from happening? Do you take the right to buy guns from these people? Well, it's a right, so that'd be difficult, the NRA would still oppose it, and many of them took guns someone else purchased, anyway. Do you lock these people up? Well, that seems easy to abuse and the vast majority of mentally ill people never go on murder sprees. Do you spend more on treatment? That doesn't help the undiagnosed, and I thought you opposed government spending? Our medical health institutions, which were fairly rotten to begin with, were all cut decades ago to decrease government spending.

What is your solution? There are only a few levers we're capable of pulling. Making acquiring guns more difficult seems to be a lever that would have an impact and is one we can easily pull. Can we get rid of all guns? No, and that'd be stupid, anyway. But can we make it more difficult for high capacity magazines to be acquired? Hell yeah.